It's been one year since we acquired Vibe Avenue—the studio now known as SIDE Montreal—and we’re proud to have seen the team flourish and develop on both existing and new partnerships, offering sound design, music composition, and integration under our umbrella of game audio production services.

Originally founded in 2013, the studio now has over 11 years of experience innovating across music and sound design for video games and new visual media. But just how did the team get to where they are today? We sat down with founders François-Xavier Dupas (Creative Director of Music & Sound, Lead Composer) and Mathieu Lavoie (Senior Director of Music & Sound, Lead Composer) to learn about their backgrounds, how the original studio came to be, and the journey that led them to joining SIDE.

Mathieu Lavoie (Mat) and François-Xavier Dupas (FX)

Can you take us back to the origin story of Vibe Avenue before becoming SIDE Montreal? Tell us about your backgrounds and how the company was founded.

FX: Starting in the early days, I studied music at a conservatory and did my undergrad at Sorbonne University in Paris. But before then, coming from a family of scientists, I was actually a gamer before becoming a musician, thanks to my dad’s fascination with technology—he would always buy the latest technology and consoles, which I was thrilled to test.

After my conservatory studies, I spent a few years as a musician touring and writing songs before eventually moving to Montreal in 2009, which is when Mathieu and I met. My first job in Quebec was as Mathieu’s TA (Teaching Assistant) at the Université de Montréal! Mat was teaching the very first university-level class in sound creation for video games in Canada and probably the whole of North America. I helped digitalize clips for the course and build the curriculum, meanwhile pursuing a master’s in film scoring, and later a PhD in interactive music composition for video games.

Mat and I’s collaboration eventually continued both on and off the university campus: together, we founded Vibe Avenue on January 1, 2013, and we hired our first employees the following year.

Mat: For my part, I’ve been gaming for what seems like forever: my first console was a Coleco Gemini back in the early 80s and my first PC was a Tandy 1000TX. My initial forays into music composition were on that same Tandy computer before I started writing scores on paper. In my teens, I spent most of my free time self-training in music composition with Cakewalk, jamming with my metal band, playing D&D, and watching Star Trek!

At 18, I teamed up with Dee Brown for Beenox’s early days, handling all the music and sound for Pillars of Garendall and taking on some business-related tasks. My university years led to earning a Doctorate from the University of Montreal, where I met FX and created many new classes, including one on sound creation for video games, as FX mentioned. FX and I became fast friends and co-founded Vibe Avenue in 2013; that same year, I also became a tenured professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal. Vibe Avenue thrived, growing both in reputation and team size, and we had a blast!

The first game we worked on, Big Action Mega Fight!, won the Best Game Audio Award at Casual Connect USA, opening numerous opportunities for us. This was in collaboration with Double Stallion Games, with whom we most recently worked on Convergence: A League of Legends Story. Over the years, we completed bigger projects like Star Trek: Fleet Command and Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance.

Then in late 2022, meeting the incredible and friendly Olivier Deslandes, SIDE’s Senior VP of Audio, was a game-changer. Visiting the SIDE LA, London, and Paris studios in early 2023 and meeting many on the company’s leadership team made us feel right at home. We knew we needed to team up with this talented group to reach new heights.

What services and expertise does SIDE Montreal offer? How did you first realize there was a market for these services?

Mat & FX: Building off our goal of being a one-stop shop for a game’s entire audio, there are four aspects to that: music, sound design, integration, and voice-over (VO).

On top of individual services, the idea was to create a studio with a strong sense of collaboration, both within our specialized teams (sound design team, music team, etc.) and between each of those teams. We wanted to master the audio landscape from A to Z, and we founded Vibe during the rise of indie games. A few indie hits had already been released (like Limbo, Super Meat Boy, Braid, and Bastion), and in Montreal, we could feel that things were bubbling away. The big studios were already here, but there was also a move toward indies and the creation of new studios. As newcomers, it was the ideal breeding ground for us to develop.

We’ve continued to follow the same philosophy, even though our team has grown over time and we’ve started getting specific orders for music and sound design, which has led our various departments to become more specialized. Through it all, our aim has always been to achieve exceptional quality. We were one of the first studios in the indie and mobile game sector to use middleware like Wwise, and we’ve paid a great deal of attention to the interactive aspect, both in terms of music and sound design, always aiming for the best possible quality. That quest for excellence has truly guided our every move since the beginning.

How have these services grown over time, and how has SIDE Montreal evolved over the years?

Mat & FX: At first we were very local, working mainly with Montreal-based studios. But over time our reputation has grown, and we’ve started getting calls and emails from all over the world about various projects. For example, we collaborated with a Turkish studio on the game Oddmar and with an Irish studio on Star Trek: Fleet Command. We’ve also worked with partners in Germany, in the United States (including on Wizards of the Coast and Riot), and more recently in China.

In short, we didn’t necessarily look for those opportunities, but our growing reputation helped us to widen our reach. This also led us to grow from a team of 2 to now having nearly 20 team members in the span of ten years.

What have been some of your key projects and milestones to date? What made them so memorable?

Mat & FX: In terms of milestones, several projects represented important steps for us:

Big Action Mega Fight!

Our very first project, which won an award at Casual Connect. This was a key moment for us.

Stories: The Path of Destinies

Released in 2016, this game was our most ambitious project up until that point. As an RPG, it included a huge amount of music as well as complex interactive music systems that were designed to serve the story. The game earned many accolades, and we took home the award for Best Audio Design at MIGA (Montreal Independent Game Festival) in 2016.

Star Trek: Fleet Command

Working on such a famous title was another milestone for us. It was the first time that we’d collaborated with such a well-known franchise. For Mat, it was a childhood dream come true to work on that whole universe (Mat owns a Star Trek uniform!), and he knew all about the music associated with it.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance

This project was another major milestone being that it was a large-scale, almost AAA-level game. We handled every aspect of the audio, from sound direction to sound design by way of voice recording coordination. It needed three hours of music, including an hour-long orchestra session that was recorded in Montreal during the pandemic. The project was a real feat of strength, with a whole host of interactive systems both for the sound design and for the music. As a huge D&D fan, this was a dream come true for Mat, who re-read all the R.A. Salvatore books about the Legend of Drizzt, while composing tracks.

How do you approach collaboration with game developers and creators to ensure that the sound design and music creation aligns with their vision for the project?

Mat & FX: We actually see ourselves as full members of the studios that we collaborate with, which means that we generally work directly on the projects in-engine. We work very closely together across all services, and we also integrate our own musical compositions, for example.

Unlike standard providers, who might be happy just to deliver pieces of music, we get intimately involved in the development process. This approach is essential in our line of work: it allows us to truly understand the gameplay, to achieve the highest level of quality and to create an immersive experience for players. We adapt to the game’s mechanics, provide relevant feedback, and respect the principles of interactivity required by the game.

What makes sound design and music creation for games different than other mediums?

Mat & FX: What makes game music and sound design unique compared to other mediums is the interactive aspect. You really need a different, more modular approach to creation so that the eventual sound or music can be recreated or recomposed in real time. It’s an art form in itself! For the foley, for example, recording interactive sound effects differs considerably from recording for a film. You need to record from a closer distance, and the various elements need to be separated to generate more possibilities for interaction.

The music follows a similar logic: we export it in stems and create different versions and different variations depending on the game’s parameters and so on. Basically, it impacts almost everything right from the start of the creative process.

Can you highlight any recent advancements in technology across games, music, and sound design that have significantly impacted the way you work?

Mat & FX: In terms of tools and technology, it’s essential to have a solid grasp of game engines and audio tools. Over the years, the tools we use have evolved, especially with platforms like Unreal Engine and developments in augmented reality. We’ve also seen the emergence of new technology like haptic feedback, which we used extensively in the game Season: A Letter to the Future, among others.

Virtual reality has also played an increasingly important role. We’ve been involved in a number of VR productions in the last few years, for example with game studio TREBUCHET and others. Spatial sound and immersive audio are key elements in that regard, and that also applies to music. In general, working in the video game industry requires deeper technical expertise than in other mediums, like film. You need to be kind of geeky, passionate about technology, and capable of using those tools daily while also following their constant evolution.

Now being part of the PTW family of brands, how do you see SIDE Montreal’s services supporting PTW and SIDE’s mission of “bringing your story to the world” for our clients?

Mat & FX: We all know that sound and music are fundamental elements of storytelling. George Lucas once said that sound was “50% of the experience” with Star Wars, and to this day, directors like Denis Villeneuve are focusing increasingly on sound and music to strengthen their storytelling. It makes the narrative a lot more powerful.

With SIDE Montreal joining the PTW global family, we’ve helped SIDE grow its audio services beyond mere voice-over and localization. Our aim is now to become global creative partners, capable of meeting every need that a gaming project might have. For one of our key clients, for example, we don’t just record voices anymore: we also integrate them directly into their game, edit them, and so on. Before, SIDE delivered recordings without integrating them directly into games, but this new approach brings us closer to developers and helps us to better meet their needs, thereby strengthening our partnerships.

From the start, our philosophy has been to position ourselves not as mere external service providers but as an entity that integrates itself into the studios that we work with. We’ve always sought to be an integral team member, and that approach is fully reflected in PTW’s philosophy.